Companies that develop automated systems for handling and checking large quantities of fruit and vegetable products often find themselves faced with problems that are not easy to resolve.
In fact, even when the system is intended for use with a single, specific type of product (a fruit for example), it is usually fed upstream with great quantities of products that arrive at the factory directly from the harvest fields, and which therefore exhibit enormous variability in size and weight.
The need is therefore felt to provide automated lines that are capable of distributing products of different size categories to a plurality of receiving stations, in that often fruits (or other fruit and vegetable products) of greater size (or greater weight) cannot be sent for subsequent processing, or to end consumers, together with the smaller fruits.
Moreover it seems evident that in an industrial context, and therefore in systems and lines that are at least partially automated, precisely this enormous variability requires maximum care on the part of the companies that make them, in that the lines and the handling elements must be sufficiently versatile to be able to cater for the different formats with which pears, apples, strawberries, cherries, etc., are presented.
To such heterogeneity we must also add the great variety of defects that fruits can exhibit, and which the system must be capable of intercepting, in order to send to the downstream stations only those products that fall within the preset quality parameters (which are moreover increasingly stringent), and diverting for reprocessing, or simply discarding, those fruits that are rotten or bruised, are showing initial signs of early decay, or that exhibit other defects.
In such context, one of the fruits that pose the most difficulties is certainly the pear: in order to be able to identify the defects and at the same time check its color and weight (and therefore its size category), systems are known that involve the use of video cameras for checking which are arranged along fruit handling lines and are capable of identifying the defects.
Such systems usually have two handling lines, side by side, in that after a first video camera has conducted a first check on the pear being conveyed on the first line, in order to detect its shape, size, color, any surface and pulp flaws, etc., the pear is tipped over and transferred to the second line, where a second video camera performs a second check on the other side of the pear, to complete the analysis.
However, the peculiar shape of the pear makes it substantially impossible to check the exact arrangement with which the pear is deposited and conveyed on the first line and, especially, at what point of the respective containment unit the pear is consequently laid and conveyed along the second line.
This complicates the second check and, especially, it makes it necessary to have a third line or station for carrying out the weighing, in that for such activity it is necessary to be able to count on a certain position (usually corresponding to the center of the containment unit), in order to obtain an exact measurement by the load cells and/or of the other sensors that are usually used.
The aim of the present disclosure is to solve the above mentioned problems, by providing a handling assembly that makes it possible to transfer fruit and vegetable products between two handling lines, while at the same time being able to control their positioning, at least on the downstream line.
Within this aim, the disclosure provides an assembly for handling fruit and vegetable products, which makes it possible to check the color, the size category and/or the presence of flaws thereon, and at the same time make it possible to weigh them.
The disclosure further provides a handling assembly that ensures a high reliability of operation.
The disclosure also provides a handling assembly that can be easily implemented using elements and materials that are readily available on the market.
The disclosure provides a handling assembly that is low cost and safely applied.
These advantages and others are achieved by providing an assembly for handling fruit and vegetable products, which comprises first containment units for fruit and vegetable products that can move along a first conveyance and/or control line and second containment units for horticultural products that can move along a second conveyance and/or control line, which is laterally adjacent and proximate to said first line, characterized in that it comprises a plurality of means for transferring the horticultural products, said means being distributed at least along a part of said first line and being selectively actuatable by an electronic management and control unit, for the transfer of each product from a said first unit to a respective said second unit in a portion chosen from a plurality of different portions of said first line, upon the occurrence of a predefined condition of mutual alignment between the horticultural product to be transferred, which is conveyed by said first unit, and a said second unit.